Friday, December 25, 2015

It's December 25th, so I'm going to go a bit out of order here and talk about my most festive holiday macarons from this year - Candy Cane, of course!

Marbled peppermint shells, rolled in crushed candy canes for an added but of pepperminty crunch.

I adore cooking with mint of any sort, but peppermint especially conjures up feelings of magical winter wonderlands, even in sunny Southern California where the temperature has been at a frigid sixty degrees. It's a great flavor because it can be made either refreshing or comforting, it pairs with milk, dark, or white chocolate, and what better way to celebrate the most wonderful time of the year than with these lovely marbled shells?

I've tried topping my shells with crushed candy canes before baking them, but the candy usually melts too much for my taste. This year I filled them with a whipped white chocolate peppermint ganache and rolled them in freshly smashed candy canes, which worked beautifully.

This was the first time I tried marbling a shell, and it was actually successful! It's just a few minor tweaks to my usual recipe, and a few extra piping bags. Here's how I did it...

- Powdered red food coloring (I like LorAnns) 1) Prep your silicon baking mats (or parchment paper) and your piping bag. I use a round tip (Aetco #11) for my macarons. For marbled shells you will need three piping bags - two will be inserted inside of the third, which will be the one that has the tip.

2) Place your egg whites in a stainless steel bowl with the cream of tartar. If using a stand mixer, use the whisk attachment, making sure that the whisk and bowl are completely clean before adding any ingredients.

3) Add the first 60 grams of almond meal and 100 grams of powdered sugar to a food processor, and process for about ten to twenty seconds. Sift into a mixing bowl and set aside. Do the same with the remaining almond meal and powdered sugar, and then set aside in a different bowl. You are essentially going to be making two batters. Add your powered food coloring to one of these bowls, like I did in my photo below.

Two bowls of dry ingredients, ready to go!

4) Begin mixing your egg whites on medium low speed, until they start to get to early stages of soft peaks. Increase the speed to medium, and once soft peaks start forming, slowly add the granulated sugar.

5) Continue mixing on medium until stiff peaks are about to form. Add on the peppermint extract and whip until stiff peaks have formed.

6) Add half of your egg white mixture to one bowl, and half to the other. Here's the first tricky part: you'll need to mix them both to the same consistency, since they will be combined in the final shell. This is definitely not a good technique for a beginner to try, but it is a good solution if you need two different color shells.

7) Once your batters have reached equal lava consistency, transfer them to two piping bags that have no tips attached. It's best to use disposable piping bags for this, since a smaller opening works better when you have to combine two batters, and you can cut them to size.

8) Feed both of these piping bags into the third piping bag (the one fitted with the tip), making sure that both batters are feeding into the tip.

9) Slowly pipe your batters together so that they come out at the same time. It may take a shell or two to get both of them piping together, but once you do you should have an even shell. I create a little swirl at the end to accentuate the marbled look. Pipe these as you would any other batch, and be sure to get the air bubbles out of them by rapping them against the counter a few times when you're done piping.

They look like little waves.

10) The shells have to rest for at least thirty minutes, so while they do you can preheat your oven to 300 degrees, or whatever temperature you've found works best for you.

11) Once your shells have rested, put the macarons in your oven on the bottom rack and bake for 16-18 minutes. If your batters were both consistent, they should cook up perfectly, but if you notice one side sliding a bit you may have inconsistent batters. Don't worry, your cookies will still be delicious - they just might not look perfect!

Success! I wasn't expecting that.

12) Let the shells cool before removing them from the silpat.

The filling for these is another one of my favorite whipped white chocolate ganaches, with a refreshing touch of peppermint. I went a bit light on the extract since I was also rolling these in candy canes, so feel free to adjust as desired.

1) Put your white chocolate in a heat proof bowl and set aside. If you're using candy canes, put them in a plastic baggie and beat the snot out of them with something heavy, like a rolling pin or a mallet.

2) While you're cleaning up the remnants of the obliterated candy canes from your counter, add the heavy cream to a small saucepan over low heat. Heat until it just begins to simmer.

3) Pour the heated cream over the white chocolate and let sit for a minute. Add the peppermint extract and whisk together to combine. Allow to cool to room temperature.

4) Once cool, use a hand mixer to whip the ganache until it lightens in color and increases in volume a bit. You should end up with a light, airy, heavenly ganache that smells and tastes wonderfully minty.

5) Transfer to a piping bag and start filling your shells. After you create each cookie, roll it in the crushed candy canes and set aside.

These were the prettiest (and also one of the tastiest) this year.

6) Don't forget to let these age in the fridge for at least twenty four hours so that the flavors have time to combine and become all the more wonderful. Serve these with a piping hot cup of hot cocoa, or give them out in lieu of candy canes.

Thursday, December 24, 2015

It's Christmas Eve, so of course I have to feature a holiday favorite.

Eggnog is weird. I always hated it as a kid, but once I discovered how nice it is to use in holiday dishes and baked goods, my opinions changed. The first Christmas that I made macarons I decided to make three holiday flavors, and eggnog was by far the biggest winner. People loved them, so I brought them back the following year and they continued to receive rave reviews. Of course that meant it would be a flavor on my menu this year for our holiday bazaar.

My eggnog macarons are super simple: I use a vanilla nutmeg shell and fill it with a whipped white chocolate eggnog ganache. They're also a non-alcoholic treat, since I tend to only use alcohol if I want it to really be a central flavor, but that's just a personal preference and I strongly encourage alcoholic treats if that's your thing!

For this particular macaron I don't use any food coloring in the shell or the filling, and instead let the cream colored shell speckled with nutmeg be a reminder of this delicious holiday drink. Food psychology is a really interesting thing - color can really affect the way people taste things, so I typically try to keep all of my macarons a color that's as close as possible to whatever flavor I'm working with.

Onto the good stuff! If you read the pomegranate recipe, you'll notice this is just about word for word identical. Unless I'm doing something fancy, like a swirl, my base recipe really doesn't change much.

EGGNOG SHELLS- 120 g almond meal- 200 g powdered sugar- 100 g egg whites- 32 g granulated sugar- 1/4 tsp cream of tartar- 1/4 to 1/2 tsp fresh grated or ground nutmeg (you can also dust the shells with nutmeg while they're resting if you really want a strong nutmeg flavor.)- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract (you can also use the scraping from half of a vanilla bean, but I like the vanilla flavor to be a bit more subtle in these)Note: I've heard of some people using rum, rum extract, or even eggnog extract (yeah, it's a thing) in their shells for added flavor. Personally I like the shells as I make them, but experiment to see what works best for you! 1) Prep your silicon baking mats (or parchment paper) and your piping bag. I use a round tip (Aetco #11) for my macarons, unless I'm doing detail work or making them huge.

2) Place your egg whites in a stainless steel bowl with the cream of tartar. If using a stand mixer, use the whisk attachment, making sure that the whisk and bowl are completely clean before adding any ingredients.

3) Add the almond meal and powdered sugar to a food processor, and process for about ten to twenty seconds to make the almond meal a bit finer. Add the nutmeg and sift everything into a mixing bowl. Set aside.

4) Begin mixing your egg whites on medium low speed, until they start to get to early stages of soft peaks. Increase the speed to medium, and once soft peaks start forming, slowly add the granulated sugar.

5) Continue mixing on medium until stiff peaks are about to form. Add in the vanilla extract and increase the speed to medium high until stiff peaks form. Do not overbeat your eggs! You want smooth, shiny stiff peaks, and if things start to look grainy, you've gone too far. Remove the bowl from your stand mixer - the rest is done by hand.

6) Start adding in your almond meal sugar mixture a quarter or so at a time. Using a spatula or a bowl scraper, fold it in until just combined, then add another quarter. This is the tricky part - you're looking for a lava like consistency that flows in ribbons back into itself. It sort of looks like a really pretty sludge, and there's no exact science to achieving this - it's mostly by feel.

8) Pipe your macarons onto your silpat. I generally make my shells about one and half inches in diameter, but you can go bigger or smaller depending on preference and usage. After you've piped them, you need to get the air bubbles out of them by rapping the cookie sheet on the counter a few times, which also helps the macarons settle and remove any lumps.

9) The shells have to rest for at least thirty minutes, so while they do you can preheat your oven to 300 degrees, or whatever temperature you've found works best for you. If you want to dust your shells with additional nutmeg or cinnamon, depending on your eggnog preference, now is the time to do so.

10) Once your shells have rested, put the macarons in your oven on the bottom rack and bake for 16-18 minutes. They shouldn't get golden brown, though some ovens might brown them if the broiler kicks on. If that happens, try putting another cookie sheet on your top rack to shield your shells a bit.

11) Let the shells cool before removing them from the silpat. I usually get about a hundred shells per batch, or enough for fifty macarons.

Eggnog shells all paired up in their little storage containers. You can see a bit of the nutmeg sprinkled throughout!

Magical things happen when you whip a white chocolate ganache. It turns into this light, airy, heavenly concoction that melts in your mouth and is perfect for highlighting delicate flavors. Ganaches also hold up a bit better than buttercreams in my opinion, so since I was going to be transporting and selling these, I went with my classic eggnog ganache recipe.

A note on rum: if you want to add it to the ganache, you have two options - add it when you're simmering the eggnog so that most of it cooks off, or add a splash later while you're mixing everything to make them alcoholic.

1) Add your white chocolate to a heatproof bowl and set aside.

2) Add your eggnog (and vanilla bean scrapings, if your're using it) to a saucepot, and bring to a simmer over low heat, careful not to burn the eggnog.

3) Once the eggnog simmers, pour it over your white chocolate and let sit for about a minute.

4) Add your nutmeg and vanilla extract, if using, and whisk everything together until smooth. Let cool to room temperature.

5) Using a hand mixer, whip the ganache. You'll notice the color start to lighten and the volume start to slightly increase. Whip until you've reached a light and fluffy consistency, about two minutes or so. Sometimes eggnog can make a ganache a bit too runny, so if you find it's not coming together, chill it for a bit and try again. If it's still too runny, you can slowly add in powdered sugar in quarter cup increments until you reach your desired consistency. But try not to overdo it with the sugar - if you're adding in more than a cup, it's best to start from scratch with less eggnog.

6) Transfer your whipped ganache to a piping bag with a round tip, and start filling your shells. Let them age for at least 24 hours in the fridge so that the flavors can meld and become awesome.

While these pair wonderfully with a glass of eggnog (who would have guessed), they're also delicious with a cup of coffee. Go big and serve them with an eggnog latte and blow someone's mind!

I somehow managed to not get a single photo of my filled eggnog macarons. I'm really bad at this game.

Tomorrow is Christmas, so I'm going to be changing the order of things just a bit so that I can feature my most festive flavor, and one of the more complicated macarons that I've ever done. I hope the suspense is killing you.

Wednesday, December 23, 2015

You've got all of these wonderful winter vegetables - butternut, honeynut, pumpkin, sweet potato - the lovely little outliers like chestnuts - and then you get all of these delicious fruits, such as persimmon, cranberry, blood orange, and pomegranate.

For this past work event, I wanted to create a flavor menu that had something for everyone, but that wasn't too over the top for most people. While I love the idea of rosemary blood orange, or cardamom saffron, I didn't want to scare people away with flavors that seemed a bit too out there. I also wanted to accurately represent the flavors of the season, so after a bit "market research" (thank you, many coworkers!) I chose pomegranate as my winter fruity macaron.

Pomegranate is a great flavor to work with. It's a bold, tart, and pairs nicely with dark chocolate, so it gets multiple points as far popularity is concerned. I decided I wanted a dark pink shell to accentuate the boldness of the flavor, and that I would use a pomegranate juice reduction to flavor a bittersweet chocolate ganache.

During my macaron adventures I've tried over two dozen recipes - French, Swiss, Italian, aged whites and un-aged whites, parchment and silpat, gels and powders...the list goes on. I've found what works best for me is this amazing recipe and the most in depth macaron study I've ever read from Not So Humble Pie. This recipe was a few grams different here and there from what I had been previously using, and making slight adjustments improved my macarons dramatically.

I apologize for the lack of photos in this post! I was rushing, it was night time, and all I had was my phone. Not the greatest combo for documentation.

A note on egg whites: I always age mine a minimum of 24 hours, but there's an argument over whether or not it's necessary. Do what works best for you, but should you age them separate them about 24 hours ahead of time and loosely cover in your fridge. Bring to room temperature before using.
1) Prep your silicon baking mats (or parchment paper) and your piping bag. I use a round tip (Aetco #11) for my macarons, unless I'm doing detail work or making them huge.

2) Place your egg whites in a stainless steel bowl with the cream of tartar. If using a stand mixer, use the whisk attachment, making sure that the whisk and bowl are completely clean before adding any ingredients.

3) Add the almond meal and powdered sugar to a food processor, and process for about ten to twenty seconds to make the almond meal a bit finer. Sift this mixture into a mixing bowl and set aside.

4) Begin mixing your egg whites on medium low speed, until they start to get to early stages of soft peaks. Increase the speed to medium, and once soft peaks start forming, slowly add the granulated sugar.

5) Continue mixing on medium until stiff peaks are about to form. Add in any extract and food coloring, if using, and increase the speed to medium high until stiff peaks form. Do not overbeat your eggs! You want smooth, shiny stiff peaks, and if things start to look grainy, you've gone too far. Remove the bowl from your stand mixer - the rest is done by hand.

6) Start adding in your almond meal sugar mixture a quarter or so at a time. Using a spatula or a bowl scraper, fold it in until just combined, then add another quarter. This is the tricky part - you're looking for a lava like consistency that flows in ribbons back into itself. It sort of looks like a really pretty sludge, and there's no exact science to achieving this - it's mostly by feel. It can't be too overbeaten or underbeaten, and you sort of figure out what you're looking for after a while. Kind of like learning a language...the language of the world's most finicky cookies.

8) Pipe your macarons onto your silpat, using a template if you desire. Try to make them a consistent size and don't crowd the poor things! They bake a lot better when they're consistent and have plenty of space. After you've piped them, you need to get the air bubbles out of them by rapping the cookie sheet on the counter a few times, which also helps the macarons settle and remove any lumps. Some people do this gently. Some people beat the hell out of it.

9) Hey, noticed how I haven't told you to preheat your oven yet? That's because these little shells need to rest until they form a skin, usually about thirty minutes or so. Now that you've piped your first batch, preheat the oven to 300F. You have to know your oven a bit - mine works great at 295 to 300, but when I lived in my last place I had to go to 310.

10) Once your shells have rested, put the macarons in your oven on the bottom rack and bake for 16-18 minutes. They shouldn't get golden brown, though some ovens might brown them if the broiler kicks on. If that happens, try putting another cookie sheet on your top rack to shield your shells a bit.

11) Let the shells cool before removing them from the silpat. Once they're cooled, you can either freeze them for a later date or fill them. If you do freeze them, prepare the filling and fill them as soon as you pull them from the freezer - as they thaw, they'll absorb the flavor of the filling nicely.

I found these awesome macaron packages that I used to hold pairs of shells in the freezer! You can see all my little pomegranate shells on the bottom, with a few stray eggnog on top.

1) Add the pomegranate juice to a small saucepan and turn the heat on low. Simmer until you have a thick, syrupy pomegranate reduction. I liked the taste of the ganache with 6 ounces of juice reduced down to a few tablespoons, but if you really want a strong pomegranate flavor you can start with more. Just make sure to reduce it down!

2) Once your reduction is done, add your chocolate to a heatproof bowl and add your heavy cream to another small saucepan. Bring the heavy cream to a slight simmer over low heat, being careful to not burn it.

3) When the cream simmers, pour it over the chocolate. Let sit for a minute.

4) Whisk the heavy cream and the chocolate together until smooth, then add the pomegranate reduction. Stir until smooth, then let cool until room temperature.

5) While your ganache is cooling, pair your shells. If you used a template or your just a piping badass, you'll probably be able to pair any shell with any other shell. I still like to make sure they match as perfectly as they can, and I also use the opportunity to check each shell and make sure there are no defective ones. If there are, I still fill them - I just keep them for myself.

6) Transfer to a piping bag fitted with the same tip you used for the macarons. Pipe a small amount onto one shell, then attach the other shell to make a perfect macaron.

Sorry for potato quality.

On my pomegranate shells I tend to add a bit of silver luster dust to give them a nice shine, though I didn't get to do that on this batch because I was so strapped for time. It doesn't change the taste at all, but gives them a nice elegant touch. If you want to add anything to the shells, now is the time to do it.

It's best to let your macarons age for about 24 hours to let the shells and the ganache meld. They're good when they're done, but they're amazing a day later - it's well worth the wait!

Up next is another holiday favorite, which was mentioned in this post. It's delicious, I promise.

Tuesday, December 22, 2015

550 macarons in three days. Ten different flavored shells, ten different fillings. Was it crazy?
Absolutely.
Would I do it again?
In a heartbeat!
I prepped Thursday night by measuring out all of my ingredients and partitioning everything that I possibly could. I split over forty eggs and kept the whites aging in my fridge, and had a ton of little baggies full of powdered sugar, almond meal, and granulated sugar. It took a few hours to get everything measured out, but it saved me a ton of time in the end.

Disregard the beakers.

My pantry was also adorned with fresh vanilla beans, espresso powder, cocoa, matcha, apple cider, too much chocolate to count, and so much more. My fridge, along with housing an unhealthy amount of heavy cream and eggnog, looked like a drug deal was going down.

200 gram bags of the good stuff.

Because I did all of the shells first and then proceeded to do the fillings, I'm going to break up each entry flavor by flavor, starting in order of how I baked them. Because the shells freeze so nicely, I was able to store them in the freezer while they awaited their fillings.

It's a good thing my freezer was empty.

Why was I making so many macarons at once? We had a super cool shindig at work where you could sell whatever you wanted, (or the event to remind all of the employees how hard their plan B jobs are and why they shouldn't quit), and I was traveling for Thanksgiving so I was unable to start until the weekend before.
Tomorrow's flavor...pomegranate shells with a pomegranate dark chocolate ganache! Stay tuned.